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Multimedia Resources
© 2008 Max Lent
Movies
The best
source of movie information on the Web is The
Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com.
It will answer all of your film questions and also
show you trailers for most recent films.
I love
watching movie trailers. Most new films
publisher their trailers at
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/. You will need
to install a free player, Quicktime, to watch
the previews and you will also need a broadband
connection to fully enjoy the previews.
DVD rental
I've tried them all and
Netflix is the
best. They have the best selection and the
best turn around times of any of the other DVD
rental services on the Web. In one month we
rented more than 20 DVDs through Netflix for a
flat fee. If you are interested in signing up
for Netflix, send me an email and I will send you a
free month invitation from Netflix (subject to
availability).
Music
My favorite streaming online music
resources are in order of preference:
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Accuradio.com.
Accujazz.com,
a subset of Accuradio.com is my favorite Jazz
station on the Web.
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Shoutcast.com.
Thousands of free stations. My favorite
Shoutcast station is their Baroque station with
music provided by
Magnatune. The sound quality is higher
than Netscape radio and the DJ selections are
always interesting. The range of
contemporary, ethnic, and other genre stations
is amazing. If you want to get involved,
you can set up your own station on Shoutcast.
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Last.fm.com.
Last.fm is unique among the other sources listed
here in that it has intelligence built into it.
This intelligence assists you in finding music
that you may not know about, but matches your
aesthetic interests.
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Live365.com.
Like Shoutcast.com Live356 has many stations
covering a wide range of music genres.
Unfortunately, some of these stations are not
free. A monthly subscription to
Shoutcast.com unlocks the fee-based stations.
Even so, there are a great many free stations
worth a listen. Like Shoutcast.com, Live
365 also invites
listeners to become broadcasters.
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Loudcity.com.
A large selection of music genres are available
at Loudcity.com. I use this resource when
I want to listen to
Radio Dismuke
which is a collection of vintage popular music.
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Microsoft Media
Player Radio Tuner. Assuming that you are
using the Windows operating system, open the
Microsoft Media player and select radio tuner.
Type in a genre and you will be shown a list of
stations. The classification is not
entirely accurate, so don't be surprised if you
find an Indiana radio station when you type in
India. Some of the stations require that
their home page be opened and then you have to
select the play music option. Some of
those stations are loaded with commercials.
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Real Network.
To use the Real Player, you will need to
download their Real Player from
Real.com.
Be cautious when you navigate the Real Network
Web site. They want you to buy a
commercial version of the Real Player. You
have to look carefully to find the free
download. One the Real Player is loaded,
you will be able to listen to a wide range of
music sources on the Web. The Real Player
radio tuner has free and fee-based channels.
The free channels are good and similar to the
ones available through Microsoft's Media player.
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Radio@netscape.com. More the 175 free
stations. The best part of Netscape radio
is their DJs. They play very listenable
sequences of music. I especially like
their Romantic Jazz and World music channels.
The worst aspect of Netscape radio is the sound
quality. Occasionally, they compress their
music too much and the result is a chalk on
blackboard high end that will send you running
for the volume control. Windows only.
They have also added a limitation on how many
songs you can listen to for free and awful
commercials for AOL. Unfortunately, Radio@netscape
will likely be dropped from this list shortly.
Ethnic Music Resources on
the Web
Afghanistan
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Radio Afghanistan. Radio Afghanistan
streams several channels of music including
mainstream, traditional, instrumental, spotlight,
Tajiky, and Hazaragi.
Indian music
A huge
collection of Indian Carnatic music.
Latin
Russian music
Serbian Orthodox
Choral Chants
World
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Radio Global Sound. Explore music from
the Smithsonian Institute's collection.
They offer channels of music from around the
world.
Movies
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Youtube.com is no
doubt the most impressive
of the online movie
publishing Web sites.
As usual, 98% of their
content is pure junk and a
waste of time.
The remaining 2% can be
very interesting.
For example, expect to
videos of police
brutality, disasters, and
timely video to show up
here first.
News
If you would
like to hear a more liberal or leftist slant on the
news, I recommend listening to:
For an even more left of center perspective listen
to Pacifica Radio
http://www.pacifica.org/ especially KPFK, KPFA,
and WBAI see list at:
http://www.pacifica.org/stations/index.html#kpfk
offers the best alternative news on the Web.
Many people don't know that they can receive
C-Span video and audio
over the Web. If you like to hear more than
sound bites, spend more time at C-Span.
Online radio
Have you ever come home late from work and missed
All Things
Considered on NPR? You can time shift by going to an
National Public Radio
(NPR) station a couple time zones to the West and start
listening at the top of the program. If you missed a day
and you want to listen to a previous program, all of the
NPR programs are archived online.
My favorite NPR program is
This American Life.
This program is pure radio at its best. The
stories told and the style they are told in demonstrates
how good radio can be. And like most NPR programs
it is archived. This means that you can scan
through the topics at their Web site and pick programs
that you missed and listen to them at the time of your
choosing. Unfortunately, This American Life seems
to be going out their way to make it difficult for Web
users to access their content, especially on Windows
Mobile PDAs. They are becoming more aggressive in
finding ways of limiting access to free listening.
My expectation is that they will soon drive away their
most loyal users and eventually become history.
My method for listening to This American Life is to
capture the programs in real time using
TotalRecorder
and then transferring them to my PDA. This takes
time and encourages me to seek other programming that is
more accessible.
The British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is another online
radio news source that I tune into often. I
particularly enjoy listening to the BBC World Service
for news. However, I will sometimes listen their
comedy and music stations as well.
The BBC is going out of their way to make listening
to their programming on PDA with Internet access.
Their radio player software does not work on Windows
PDAs.
The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), like the
BBC is an excellent resource for news and cultural
programming. My favorite CBC program is
Ideas. This program is about as intellectual
and interesting as radio gets.
Directories of other
online radio and television stations
You can look radio
and television stations that broadcast on the Web by going
to sites like:
There are more
directories of online radio and television sources at:
Yahoo
search for online
radio directories.
Online TV
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